A Hard Day After a Long Night
by Gumi Reloaded
Summary: If the last three weeks hadn't been hell, then he didn't know where he was.
1. Chapter 1 A Hard Day After a Long Night

A HARD MORNING AFTER A LONG NIGHT

Date: Sunday, February 5, 2060  
Time: Mid –morning, after his encounter with Soujirou  
Place: Sano's apartment, located in a 'better' New Meiji neighborhood  
Characters: Sano

The past three weeks had passed pretty much in a drunken blur for Sano. It was just one bingeing bender right after the other. The thing was, with as much as he'd consumed, by now he should have been dead from alcohol poisoning. But he wasn't. Dang strange, that it was.

He started to breathe heavily when he thought of all the lies, all the deceit, all the betrayal heaped upon his unit. The Sekihoutai, an elite group of special operatives, were always called on for the most discrete, the most dangerous, not to mention the most dirty little jobs that the New Meiji political hacks ordered.

Hey, it paid well, and he was no sap. He did drink, and he did gamble, but the heck if he was going to just throw that kind of money away on pursuits of pleasure. He was a country boy from the get go, his Dad and brother were still down on the farm. Even his sister's lazy husband lent a hand in the fields.

But three weeks ago something went very, very wrong. The Sekihoutai had been set up. Sure, they'd been told that there was nothing to their next op, piece of cake. Yeah, one that crumbled to bits in the end. The thirty-man-strong group was cut down to a mere five men, Sano being one of those five. He still couldn't understand why he, of all people, was spared the agonizing fate of most of his brothers in arms.

Sano had gone on a bender last night. Must have tried every brand of sake the joint had on the shelf behind the bar. This morning he decided that although being a perpetual drunk might shield his mind and his emotions from the terrible pain that plagued him, it was no way to honor the memory of all those brave men, and their beloved leader, Captain Sagara.

So on his way home he stopped by a nice little coffee shop to get some strong, black joe to try to sober up a bit. The way he saw things, if he could at least be sober for an hour or two, then he wouldn't be a perpetual drunk. Large amounts of alcohol didn't seem to affect him the way they used to, which was very strange. He was sobering up fairly well this morning. Everything would have been fine, if it hadn't been for the rich, spoiled college brat who poked and prodded at people who just wanted to be left alone.

The kid even threw a cup of hot latte at him. Stung like heck at the time. So he'd ambled on home to strip off his wet, coffee stained shirt to see what sort of damage the hot liquid did to his skin.


	2. Chapter 2 A Shocking Surprise

Chapter 2 A Shocking Surprise

After throwing his wallet and keys on the table, Sano headed for the bathroom. He wanted to check out the burn the hot coffee made on his chest. The liquid felt scalding when it first hit. Back at the coffee shop Sano had to bite back a curse in response. That brat was sure a strange one to do something like that to a total stranger.

The kid had been the one to do the baiting. Sano didn't bite, though. Being in the service had helped him curb his volatile temper, a temper he was well known for unleashing during his growing up years. Well, to be truthful, the only reason he could reign in his temper was because of Captain Sagara's firm, but fair discipline. The man had been more of a father figure to Sano, than his own father. Sagara had been Sano's role model. After the man died in the government experiment gone wrong, Sano had even taken his last name.

Standing in front of the mirror, he unbuttoned his outer shirt and threw the soggy thing over the side of his bathtub. Then he peeled off his muscle undershirt, only to stare at the mirror in complete surprise. He'd expected to see an expanse of angry red skin. But there was nothing out of the normal to be seen. He put his hand on his bare chest where he was sure the hot liquid had splashed. Then he moved his hand down and to the side. He was puzzled. The contact area was warmer than the surrounding skin, but it looked no different. He knew he didn't imagine that the steaming coffee hurt when it hit his chest, but now it was almost like it never happened.

Hm. Something was up. He'd been drinking in excess for the last three weeks, after that experiment gone wrong left him as one of only 5 survivors out of 30 men. But he now realized that he never had much of a hangover the next morning. That in itself was surprising, since after drinking binges he usually woke up with the hangover from hell.

During the last three weeks, he knew that he'd drunk enough sake to kill a horse more than a few times as he went on bender after bender trying to forget about his brothers in arms. No, not trying to forget, trying to join those that didn't survive. He never wanted to forget them. He'd quit drinking because he finally was willing to admit that being perpetually drunk was no way to honor them. He knew *that* from the beginning, but the need to drown his excruciating grief had overwhelmed him to the point that he couldn't think straight.

And honor them he would do for the rest of his life. As one of the surviving few of the Sekihoutai Special Operative Unit of Japan's Homeland Defense Force, he would keep the memory and the reputation of the unit alive. He wouldn't forget them. He wouldn't let the country forget them. And he would find those responsible for that drug trial and make them pay. He could see Captain Sagara bravely leading the way, being the first to get the injection that would soon send him to an agonizing death. The memory caused Sano to smash his left hand into the mirror in anguish.

Shards of glass scattered around the bathroom, his hand was cut and bloody. Dang. He needed to reel in his temper. All those years under Captain Sagara's mentorship meant something. He wouldn't allow himself to slide back into the cocky, reckless youth that he had once been before joining Sagara's unit. Now ….although he was still easily angered, he could usually reel it in and contain it.

Truthfully, he hadn't entered Captain Sagara's unit willingly. The man had seen the potential in the brash young son of a farmer, and the Captain had been the one to request that Sano be transferred from the regular army to the Special Forces group. The transition from reckless youth to seasoned soldier hadn't been easy on anyone, the Captain in particular, but he'd never lost faith in his decision to invest time and training in Sano. Eventually, it paid off big time. Sano turned out to be one of Sagara's most skilled and trustworthy recruits.

Sano closed the toilet seat, sitting down on the lid, so he could pick out the small pieces of mirror that were lodged in his knuckles. No sooner than he started removing them, something very, very odd and very strange began to happen to his skin. The little cuts from the glass closed themselves as soon as a glass shard was picked out. Sano was amazed, puzzled and unnerved by what was happening in front of his eyes. The glass cuts that had no glass in them appeared to be healing of their own accord right in front of his eyes. It looked like the skin was regenerating, but that was impossible.

Sano jumped up, holding his hand in front of his face, gazing in wonder at the sight in front of his eyes. Quickly, he removed the remaining pieces of glass from his knuckles. Within minutes his hand looked completely normal, and most surprising of all…there were no scars to be seen. All cut skin that healed had scars didn't it?

What the heck was going on?


	3. Chapter 3 The Question

Sano switched off the bathroom light, not even bothering to clean up the shards of mirror that were still scattered around, and walked back to his living room, continuing to gaze at his completely healed hand. He kept turning it over, looking at one side, then the other, bringing it close to his face so he could inspect for scars, but he found none.

Plopping down on his couch, he felt very puzzled. This had never, ever happened to him before. Yes, he'd gotten injuries, plenty of them. In fact some would say he'd had more than his fair share. But they always took time to heal; some of them took a *lot* of time, depending on the injury.

But this was just weird, very, very weird. He remembered a slight cut he'd gotten on his hand about a month ago. It had taken a few days to heal over completely, but even that small scar was nowhere to be seen at the moment.

So, what was the big change? What had happened over the past three weeks? With all the liquor he'd consumed, could he even remember the last three weeks? No, he had to admit, if he were honest with himself, he couldn't remember much. Drowning yourself in the bottle had a way of doing that to a person.

But he *did* remember what sent him on that mind numbing drinking binge. It was the all consuming need to forget. To forget that day in the government lab that caused his life, and the lives of all of those he held dear, to go completely to hell.

What had they been told? That the Sekihoutai was chosen for a special mission, one that could help mankind live a better life. It was some nonsense about testing a combined vaccine that would provide protection to all the known communicable diseases with only one injection.

His unit was told it would be an honor to participate; they were told that there was nothing to it, safe as could be. They were told lies, all lies. Betrayed by the very government they swore to protect.

His mind couldn't bear to even think about what happened after each of them had received that injection. Instead of being safe, it had been lethal, killing 25 out of the 30 members of the Sekihoutai.

His hands clenched to fists, remembering that Captain Sagara had been the first to be injected. The man was always out in front leading his men, no matter how simple or complicated the mission. The ex-op squeezed his eyes shut, and held in a breath for a few moments before letting it out in a desperate attempt to keep his emotions under control from the flood of memories that were threatening to overwhelm him.


End file.
